Golden Blessing by glorfindelcorner  

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Two

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4

Glorfindel was not alone in his body when he woke up on the shores of Middle Earth.

He rose to stand on his feet on the sandy shores to place his hands on either side of his stomach and found his girth similar to what it had been upon his death.

The knowledge that his son had been reembodied along with him soothed any trace of loneliness that creeped into heart upon his exit from the halls of waiting in ways no healing in Valinor could have accomplished.

With newfound determination, Glorfindel set out his journey into the changed land on foot, for he was not alone. He carried within him a part of Ecthelions faë and all that was left of him in this world. Nothing and no one would take this from him and thus Glorfindel guarded his secret more closely this time around and kept himself loosely wrapped in his tunic.

Soft pale sand beneath his boots turned coarse and then to mud and grass. He walked for miles under the light of the sun and singing of the stars. His legs knew where to carry him without stumbling into harm's way until he met a wild horse grazing upon a poppy field. As though she had waited idily for him in this place, she was eager to have him upon her back.

Asfaloth finished their trek to the hidden settlement of Imladris, far into the eastern valley of Eriador where Glorfindel was welcomed warmly by Lord Elrond, whose eyes shone bright like that of the young prince Eärendil. Even though Glorfindel came bearing ill foretelling from the Valar.

The members of Elrond's household gave their kindness freely in exchange for his stories of the ancient world in the great hall of fire. They were easily satisfied by the short tales of heroes in battle, the timeless counsel of queens and quests of doomed lords and princes whom Glorfindel once called his friends.

Not every day was he in the mood for the telling of melancholy tales, but he would simply retreat back to his rooms. He had come to occupy half the wing of Elrond's chief counselor, whom had insisted that the rooms had stood empty anyway and that he did not like for the resources to go to waste. Erestor did not take to crowds and endless chatter, which suited Glorfindel well on the nights he woke up in a damp pool of his own sweat and the sheets gathered around his waist, his heart racing in the aftermath of another nightmare. He did not dream of his own death half as much as his mind would conjure up the image of Ecthelion face down in the fountain, drowned in choking red blood.

On those nights, he always found Erestor still working in their adjoined study and quietly sat down in the chair by the fire without disturbing Erestor at his desk.

Glorfindel always ended up letting the cup of tea Erestor would pour him go cold in his hands, since it would not sit right in his stomach with the remembrance of Ecthelion lonely death still haunting his waking thoughts. Erester nonetheless poured him a cup each time.

"I am starting to think my brews are not to your liking, my lord," Erestor spoke softly on one such occasion without the stern edge Glorfindel had become accustomed to in Elrond's privy council. When Glorfindel failed to answer promptly, Erestor drew his chair by the fire and sat with Glorfindel for some time. Erestor drank his tea, while Glorfindel did not, and together they stared into the crackling flames.

At one point, Glorfindel's hand had come to rest on his stomach and he caught Erestor looking at it from the corner of his eye, though neither of them spoke of what it had meant. Perhaps some sort of excuse was in order, but Glorfindel was weary and would not have known what to say even if he had the ability to find his voice again after witnessing the terrors that his mind had conjured up earlier that evening.

"Here," Erestor nudged Glorfindel's hand with a biscuit, an unassuming thin disque. "Take it, it is perfectly bland. They help settle my stomach when Olthedir brings me another stack of paperwork that he conveniently forgot to deliver earlier in the week."

The corner of Glorfindel's mouth lifted involuntarily.

He took the biscuit and nibbled on it for some time until it softened on his tongue and went down his throat with ease. Once Erestor was satisfied Glorfindel had eaten, he stood up to gather his paperwork from his desk and finished it with Glorfindel by the fire in silence.

 

 

5

Glorfindel was brought under Erestor's care and enjoyed the luxury of being one of the few people whose company Erestor tolerated, or even cautiously enjoyed.

They found each other in their solitary, but also later in the great hall of fire for long songs and tedious feasts, their chairs pushed together at the table for dinner and their seats conjoined in the privy council, close enough to whisper without being overheard. They fed each other bits of fruit and pastries if one insisted that the other would enjoy it and even shared sips of wine if the other ran out before their drink was poured again by one of the servants.

The whispers that followed their perceived closeness were abundant, but not unkind. It was clear that most people were delighted to see Erestor share such closeness with someone in the valley, Glorfindel had even caught lord Elrond at one point smiling at them whilst whispering something in his wife's pointy ear.

Glorfindel came to believe that same sex relationships were not frowned down upon here in Imladris.

One day, when they were the last ones in the privy council after the rest of the lords had wandered off to receive their luncheons and paperwork, Glorfindel lingered in the arched doorway until Erestor finished drafting his meeting notes. Erestor eventually stood to link their arms to walk back to their rooms together.

This act of affection, though only friendly in nature, drew many eyes as they passed through the overgrown gardens and cobbled pathways. They were greeted with smiles and friendly waves. To be so blatant and carefree in his affection was peculiar indeed, Glorfindel marveled to have lived to see such a change in their kin and proceeded to ask Erestor about it once they were back inside.

"Hm, I don't believe same sex relationships have been a matter of dispute amongst the Sinda, not since king Thingol's rule at any rate, but I assume this was different in Gondolin?" Erestor worded it as a question though he had guessed correctly. Before Glorfindel could answer, Erestor insisted he sat and herded him into a seat. Glorfindel went without a fuss, for he was rounder at the middle and grew winded faster than when he first arrived in the valley.

Once he sat down with folded arms, he dug through the memories of hidden meetings and shared kisses in shadows and dark corners before he came with an answer — something he found himself doing more often now than he had in his past life when he had chuckled at the ways of their elders, trailing off mid sentence and getting lost in their own minds for long stretches of silent thought.

"Such things were forbidden in Gondolin," he said, eventually.

His eyes opened to Erestor already seated opposite him on the settee beside to the window. He held out a bowl of glistening freshly washed grapes to Glorfindel. Glorfindel took this offering for his stomach would remained insistently hungry as of late.

"I see," Erestor hummed, "who did you share your hidden affection with?"

"Ecthelion." The name sat strangely on his lips somce he avoided speaking it during his storytelling in the great hall of fire. Each syllabel warmed him, he knew his cheeks appeared flushed even in the dim lighting. Quietly he vowed to himself to speak his name more often, so that it may never sit like the name of a stranger in his mouth again. "He passed in Gondolin and resides in the halls now," he said needlessly, for the story of Ecthelion of the Fountain was well known amongst their kin.

Erestor studied him and stretched out to pluck one grape for himself. "Then it is his child you carry, is it not?"

"Yes, it is," Glorfindel laughed suddenly, for he should not have been surprised that Erestor had long known.

It spoke to the good graces Glorfindel was in for Erestor to only bask momentarily in having guessed his secret correctly, his smug satisfied smile settled and softened on his elegant features. He then, not unlike Mityissë all those centuries ago in the city of Gondolin, took Glorfindel's hands and urged him to seek out a healer. At that time Glorfindel had not heeded Mityissë's advice in a desperate attempt to bid himself more time. He knew not what had come of Mityissë, if she had lived to see her own children grow or if she had succumbed to the destruction of the fair city. Erestor came back into focus and again, he urged Glorfindel to seek out Elrond. "Because times have changed, and you would be a father to your child if you so wished."

"But my condition is. Uncommon."

"Be that as it may," Erestor was no longer asking, and his hands insistently drew Glorfindel to his feet without heeding his weary sigh. "If anyone could be of help to you, then it is our lord."

In the end, Glorfindel was given no alternative but to follow Erestor into the higher fortresses of Imladris where lord Elrond resided with the lady Celebrían, and held private consultations. Glorfindel's appearance sent the servants into an immediate frenzy, as though his mere presence was reason to clear the rest of their lord's present appointments.

Indeed, no few moments after he and Erestor took their seats in the long corridor, lord Elrond appeared from a side door and kindly summoned Glorfindel into a different, quiet well-lit room. The warm rays of the sun streamed in through an unopened window. Glorfindel stood there for some time while he thought of what he might say.

Though he needn't.

When Elrond finished cleaning and drying his hands in a sanitary basin stationed in one corner of the room, he gestured for Glorfindel to lay back and remove his shirt. "So, I assume that I can now finally offer my congratulations properly?" And Glorfindel could only answer his knowing smile with a smile of his own.

 

 

6

In the later stages of Glorfindel's pregnancy, the two of them often took to sitting either in Erestor's sitting room or Glorfindel's west facing balcony for laughter and gossip over tea.

They often circled back to the same conversations. Erestor concerned himself over Ecthelion's absence and was adamant that it took two life forces to sustain an elfling. In turn, Glorfindel was certain that he received plenty of caring companionship through their shared bond.

Erestor shut his book, bent down and braced his hands on either side of Glorfindel's abdomen to kiss him below the belly button. In the past Erestor had made jests about his size, but none of those could measure up to what has become of his overgrown bump, and thus the jests had ceased. Glorfindel stretched his legs to stretch his muscles and pop the joints in his toes with a contented sigh.

It would have been a ludicrous effort to hide his condition and was glad that this was no longer a point of contingency. Imladris was a safe haven for those who had survived the turmoil of the earlier ages. Glorfindel could easily put those dark thoughts and ill forboding to the back of his mind. With the soft breeze that was upon his smiling face and the sun tickling his skin, the quiet rustling of Erestor returning to his book — all was well still.

He might have wished for Ecthelion, but he was not gone forever. There would come a time when they would lay eyes upon each other again in Valinor, the place where they had grown into adulthood and intertwined their fëar. There Ecthelion would get to meet their son, and chief counselor Erestor, who had lend his goodwill to them and fulfilled their happiness, as true a friend as any could have.

Erestor pulled Glorfindel from his thoughts by meeting his gazeless eyes, his tone was not free from its sharp teasing edge. "Did your mind also wander this often in your life before?"

"Nay, I fear it is old age that made me prone to it," Glorfindel felt his face stretch into a smile, "why? Do you worry that my disposition is better fitted to a grandsire, than that of a father?"

"Not at all! I rather fear that I have signed myself up for a century of chasing your child around the valley to keep them out of harms way, because you are too preoccupied with daydreaming."

" Him , it's a boy," Glorfindel insisted, again.

"You cannot possibly know that," Erestor rebuked, for the upteenth time.

Glorfindel folded his hands over himself and rocked back in his chair. His eyes shut under the weight of his eyelids and he was in bliss. He heard Erestor sigh in exasperation, but he too returned to his quiet activity. That was the way they would spend those afternoons in the early spring.

 

 

Epilogue

The labour pains began when the moon stood high in the sky and still conversing with the far-away stars.

Erestor was awoken from his reverie in a startling panic and it had taken some time for Glorfindel to calm him before they went to rouse the quarters of the healers. Lord Elrond had long insisted on delivering the elfling personally, with assistance from his most trusted midwives, and so it happened.

Glorfindel was returned to his bedchamber where he was made comfortable for some time, until the pain became overbearing. At last, this triggered Erestor's razor sharp focus and thus he held Glorfindel through this final trials of pain as it came upon him as an internal all-consuming tide. The midwives were at their task, discussing him amongst themselves and sometimes they spoke to him directly with questions or instructions, with calming touches to his leg or ankle. Lord Elrond was at his back to rub ground herbs in his shoulders and chanted soothing enchantments, while Erestor was at his bedside and took his hand and his grip never ceased to leave, for one matter or another. Glorfindel was deeply glad for their presence, although he could not have voiced it at that time.

Just as the pain seemed to become too much to bear, he was kindly informed by lord Elrond that his patience would soon be paid off.

The echoing enchantments and soothing murmurs of praise were all that filled the low-lit room, until upon the break of dawn, Glorfindel sat upright with the last of his strength and stubbornly brought his own child into the world.

It was a mighty sight for those lucky enough to witness the moment of blissful joy and unification. One of the midwives helped him to support the child's head and wriggling body until it was placed safely upon Glorfindel's bosom, and he received the crying child gladly.

Congratulations were uttered along with blessings from the Valar.

Erestor's hand found the back of the child's head and his lips caught the corner of Glorfindel's mouth in a kiss, whilst lord Elrond braided Glorfindel's long tresses back in the style of a victorious warrior in battle, thus marking the end of this particular peril. The midwife who delivered the child asked if he would name the child.

Glorfindel smiled tearfully at the life that had been created and had been unknowingly willed so long ago in a world so drastically changed.

For some time he had known that his son would be Ecthelion of Imladris.

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Chapter End Notes

Thank you so much for reading, this was my first fic for the SWG!